New York, December 9, 2011
The tiny Greek orthodox parish of St. Nicholas is finally celebrating. The terror attack of September 11 destroyed the church that sat in the shadows of the Twin Towers.
For years, the church battled the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey over ownership of the property where the church once stood and where the new one could be rebuilt. The parish even filed a lawsuit against the city.
But the legal battle is now resolved.
This week church members honored their patron saint's feast day on the grounds of what will be a resurrected house of worship.
"It's been a very long struggle," said John Couloucoundis, the parish president. "It's really been an act of faith, we've been doing it for ten years and we are ecstatic that we finally have an agreement."
The massive destruction at Ground Zero means St. Nicholas will be rebuilt on a new foundation, about 200 feet from its original spot.
"The engineering study showed that that particular area was suitable for building a church on top," Couloucoundis said. "And so we were very happy on that basis to come to an agreement with the Port Authority."
The murder of thousands of innocents gives the church a new spiritual mandate: to serve a broken community.
"Three-thousand of our fellow citizens died there that day and that can't be forgotten. Our church was destroyed that day," said Father Mark Arey. "The fact that it's being rebuilt has tremendous spiritual importance for the site. We're including in the space kind of a multi-purpose, interfaith, component so that if a person were not comfortable entering into an orthodox Christian place of worship, they would be comfortable.
